Forever Q
by Ellis Jenkins
Summary: Q travels back in time to the 21st century and meets a young woman called Romula. They fall in love.
1. Prologue

Being the daughter of a duchess was more torture than it was paradise. Yes, you get anything you want, but it wouldn't make you happy. You wouldn't be able to leave the mansion, which led to never finding friendship or love. This was something Romula was all too familiar with. She'd sigh at the large meal placed in front of her, she'd look longingly at the people who walked by. The only friendship Romula had was between her and her horse, Speckle. This was very much the same case with Q. Through man, what he said were, 'misunderstandings', he had met many people, yet he had no friends. The only people he turned to in a crisis, were the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, and, even then, they didn't like him. What would happen if the two ever met...?


	2. Chapter 1

Romula mounted Speckle in the mansion's back grounds.

"Come on, boy," she whispered, looking at the stars. "Onwards and upwards."

Speckle trotted forwards into the woods. Suddenly, there was a 'poof' sound and a bright blue flash. Lying low on Speckle's back, Romula urged the grey and white speckled horse on. When they got to the source, Romula was shocked. On his stomach, gripping the branch of a tree, was a man with slightly wavy, dark hair. He was wearing some sort of deep sea diving suit. It was black across his shoulders and from his hips down. From the top of his chest to his hips, it was red. Intrigued, Romula lay, watching, atop her horsey friend. The man lifted his head, having seen something on the ground.

"Whoever's down there, just help me!" he demanded down the tree.

Warily, Romula urged Speckle onwards and sat up. The man looked down.

"Finally!" he said, exasperated.

Romula, still wary, dismounted and climbed up the tree.

"Sit up and follow my lead." she whispered to him.

Eventually, Romula got the man down from the tree.

"You have my gratitude." the man reluctantly thanked.

Romula nodded to him, before re-mounting Speckle.

"Wait! You're not going to leave me here, are you?" the man called after her.

Stopping, Romula turned to him.

"I have no choice," she told the man. "You are on private property. I took a risk even helping you down from that tree."

"You don't want to leave me?" the man asked in shock.

"I have not met anyone who doesn't work or live here," Romula explained. "Of course I don't want to. But I have no choice."

She then galloped back to the mansion stables, leaving the man standing at the base of the sycamore tree.

After the normal, large, sized breakfast, Romula rode back into the woods. She found that the man still hadn't left. For some reason, he kept on clicking his fingers as though expecting something to happen.

"It's dangerous for you to still be here." Romula called to him.

The man looked at her.

"We meet again," he said. "I don't think we ever exchanged formalities."

"I am Romula. This is Speckle," Romula replied, introducing herself and Speckle. "What about you?"

"I'm Q." the man, Q, replied, sounding quite proud.

Romula raised an eyebrow.

"An honor." she said.

"Indeed it must be.! Q agreed.

Romula leaned onto Speckle's neck.

"So, where do you come from?! she asked.

"I come from the Q continuum," Q replied. "You won't have heard of it. I am also from the twenty-fourth century."

"I shall take your word." Romula told him.

She took out a sketching pad and pencil. Chewing the end of her pencil, she would look up at Q every so often. Eventually, Romula put the pad and pencil back into her satchel.

"I need to get back to the mansion," she told Q. "But I will be back."


	3. Chapter 2

Romula often spent her time drawing in her bedroom. The portrait of Q was pinned up next to her bed. It was painted in water colours and looked quite grand.

Like the man himself! Romula thought with a grin. Sitting on her window seat, she looked out at the clear view of the woods. Q's quite handsome.

"And charming." she murmured.

"What did you say?" a voice from outside her door asked.

It was Klingo, Romula's younger brother.

"None of your business!" Romula snapped.

"Everything in this house can be my business." Klingo pointed out, annoyingly. He caught sight of Q's portrait. "Who's that?"

Romula sighed. "If I tell you, do you promise not to tell anyone?" she asked. Klingo nodded, and Romula sighed again. "His name is Q," she explained. "I found him in the woods at the back of the grounds."

"How on earth did he get there?!" Klingo exclaimed.

"Be quiet! I don't know." Romula replied.

"Do you fancy him?" Klingo asked, eyebrows raised and an evil grin plastered on his face.

"What?"

"This Q guy. Do you fancy him?"

"Look, if you don't get your nose out of my personal business, I shall..."

"Yeah, I get the idea."

Klingo started to leave the room.

"Oh, and Klingo?" Romula said.

"Ye-es?" Klingo asked, turning around.

"Remember the promise." Romula told him.

Klingo tapped the side of his nose, before disappearing into the corridor. Romula pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. Klingo was right. She was developing some sort of crush on Q.

"Who do you think you are, challenging my being here?" Q asked, annoyed.

"Actually, I'm the man of the house, so I have every right to challenge the fact that you're trespassing on private land!" Klingo replied.

Romula rode up to them on Speckle.

"Klingo! You promised me that you wouldn't tell anyone about Q, and yet here you are yelling at him!" she said, frustrated with her brother.

Klingo look at Q and found a resemblance between him and his portrait.

"Oh." he said.

"You will leave the woods," Romula instructed her brother. Klingo opened his mouth to speak. "And you will not say a word," Klingo left the woods without a sound. Romula turned to look at Q. "I am truly sorry about my brother," she apologized. "Are you okay?"

Q nodded in thought. "You haven't had encounters with alien life forms yet, have you?" he checked.

"Other than yourself, not that I know of." Romula told him.

"It's just that your names sound a lot like some." Q said.

"Ah," Romula said, dismounting Speckle and sitting next to Q in silence. "Have you ever loved someone?" she suddenly asked.

"Why do you ask?" Q asked in reply.

"You have asked me a lot of questions," Romula replied. "Why should I not ask any?"

"No, I have never loved," Q said, answering the first question. "I have no need to."

"You've never wanted to?"

"I've never needed to."


	4. Chapter 3

"You cannot stay in this part of the woods any longer." Romula told Q. It was a dark night; the perfect time to try to move Q.

"Why?" Q demanded.

"Someone will find you," Romula explained. "Come on."

"On _that_?"

"Unless you want to be seen, yes."

Q sighed, before ungracefully mounting Speckle.

"Stay low," Romula instructed. "No-one's likely to see us then."

Q did as she said. With Q's chest on her back, Romula couldn't help feeling self-conscious, and blushed, glad that Q couldn't see her.

"Here. This should be safe." she whispered, straightening up.

They dismounted Speckle and looked around. The clearing was beautiful. The trees arched over it, and there were large rocks dotted around.

"You can stay here," Romula told Q. "But I need to be back at the house. Goodbye."

With Romula on his back, Speckle walked in the direction of the mansion.

Romula was sitting with Q in the new clearing.

"Jean-Luc's the most annoying Frenchman you could ever come across. Then there's that godforsaken robot. Irritatingly logical. And commander Riker. He could've been a fine man. I don't know why Geordi's chief engineer. If it weren't for that VISOR he'd be completely useless. And I don't appreciate his sense of humour. All I have for lieutenant Worf is pea-brain." Q said, finishing his rant about the Enterprise crew.

"And all I have for you is this." Romula said, wrapping her arms around Q's neck and kissing him.

Taken by surprise, Q froze, before wrapping his arms around Romula's waist and returning the kiss.

"I would be intrigued to meet these friends of yours." Romula purred through the kiss.

Q held her at half an arm's length.

"I'll see what I can do." he whispered.

Romula was woken by Speckle's warm breath against her ear. Flickering her eyes open, she found herself curled up against Q, her long leg weaved around his broad one. Q's arm was around her. Carefully taking Q's arm off of her, Romula sat up.

"I stayed here all night." she murmured.

Q stirred and looked a t Romula.

"Yes, yes you did," he said. "Have you got a problem with that?"

"Yes! Several in fact!" Romula exclaimed, mounting Speckle.

"Where are you going?" Q called.

"Back to the house!" Romula called back.

Q tried to stop her from leaving, but it was no use. On her way through the house to her room, Romula bumped into Klingo.

"Where were you?" Klingo exclaimed.

"In the woods with Speckle and Q," Romula whispered. "Q's quite a good kisser."

"God, this ain't good." Klingo said.

"I know, but Klingo, I love Q." Romula replied.

"I know you do, but this is too much, too soon." Klingo told her.

Romula shut herself in her room. She didn't come out until that night.

"Would you care to join me on the Enterprise?" Q offered.

"What will you be doing?" Romula asked.

"Oh, one of the usual tests." Q replied, offhandedly.

"Wait here for fifteen minutes." Romula told him.

She ran to the house. After putting things in her satchel, she slid a note through Klingo's door:

Klingo,

I have left with Q.

Don't worry, we know

where we're going. Tell

Mum that I've run away.

Nothing else. She can't know

about Q. And, please, look

after Speckle.

Romula xxx

After saying goodbye to Speckle, Romula returned to Q.

"I am ready." she told him.

Q clicked his fingers, and they were gone.


	5. Chapter 4

It had been one week since Q had teleported himself and Romula onboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, and he'd finished preparations for his latest 'test'. Romula had been learning the basics of twenty-fourth century engineering with Geordi LaForge. They were in main engineering, when Romula noticed something odd on one of the computers.

"Commander," she called to the chief engineer. "Come over here. If I knew better, I would say that in five minutes your ship will have a full power down. It may be a misinterpretation, but, on the other hand, it may not be."

Geordi walked over to her.

"It's definitely no misinterpretation," he said, pressing his comm badge. "Bridge, this is main engineering."

"Go ahead Geordi." the distinguishable voice of Captain Picard demanded.

"According to one of our computers, the ship's going to experience a power down," Geordi reported. "You might want to send someone down here."

"Noted Mr LaForge," Captain Picard said. "Commander Data will be with you shortly."

As the captain had promised, the Android officer came into main engineering.

"How much time do we have?" Data queried.

"We have approximately three minutes." Romula told him.

"Then we do not have much time." Data said, stating the obvious.

After many button sequences, five seconds before the power down, Data and Geordi managed to stop the power down. Data turned to Romula.

"You traveled with Q." he stated.

"Yes, that is correct... Data." Romula replied.

"Did he tell you anything that would have suggested that he was planning to do this?" Data asked.

Romula thought about this.

"He mentioned something about 'the usual test'," she answered. "I didn't really think about it."

"Do you know that Q's a big threat to us?" Geordi asked.

"I know he doesn't much like your crew," Romula said. "But I wouldn't have said he was a threat to you."

"He is," Data told her. "He has been for some time."

"Then it seems I have some talking to do." Romula said, before, sort of, mock strutting out of engineering.


	6. Chapter 5

"You've trusted me enough to sleep with me for eight days," Q told Romula. "Why don't you trust me now?"

"I trusted you _before_ I was told that you had lied to me," Romula replied. "You lied to me about your reasons for coming. You lied to me about these people being your friends. Could it be that you are lying about your feeling for me as well?"

"Those accusations are not strictly true," Q quietly told her. "This crew is the closest thing I've had to having friends."

"For all I know, that could be true," Romula said. "But what about your reasons for coming here?"

"I didn't lie about that," Q assured Romula. "And if I lied about the last, would I do this?"

Q cupped his hands around Romula's face and kissed her. Pushing herself away, Romula looked at Q, a sadness in her eyes.

"I'm sorry Q, but still feel no more trusting of you." she told him.

Q squared up to her.

"Then I shall leave tomorrow, and leave you here alone." he announced.

"For once, I am a step ahead of you," Romula said. "I have spoken to Captain Picard. I'm going to be working in engineering."

"Whoopie-doo for you!" Q replied, sarcastically. "This will be my final goodbye."

Q snapped his fingers to let Jean-Luc know of his departure, before leaving the ship.


End file.
